CHAPTER 125: Fury

Mr. Grim surveyed the entrance through his mask. He had another name, but his occlumentary barriers were strong and the only name he would own at this time was Mr. Grim. It was about an hour before dawn, and the Death Eaters were gathering outside the ministry in the shadows of the twilight. Those that had seats on the Wizengamot were already there, for an emergency meeting was in progress. The Dark Lord had said to be here, and so they were here. The time of their ascension was at hand and they knew it.

The sun rose and still they waited. The front door faced east, which hid them from site even as it rose. Not a one of them was foolish enough to permit himself to become backlit.

Someone behind him said it was time. He turned and looked and Lord Voldermort had crept up behind him. At once Mr. Grim's wand was in his hand and he set his face against the door of the ministry. The Death Eaters were well trained and advanced as one man. The door guardian saw them and went for his wand, but was brought down by a hailstorm of stunners before he got his wand level. The door, on the other hand was not so easily opened. An alhomara or three didn't unlock it. Voldermort displayed his typical lack of patience, but rather than chastise his death eaters he traced a rune with a wand, chanted Az-Reth, and unleashed fiendfyre. The door didn't stand, for only the stone of the Wizengamot could turn fiendfyre. The Death Eaters were amazed at this ready use of fiendfyre, like the blood sacrifice didn't matter. Which of course it didn't, but they didn't need to know that just yet.

Once inside they fanned out through the corridors intent on killing any aurors inside. This was probably not the best of strategies, but even if some were lost, the aurors would be kept busy dealing with them, and those not brought down with the killing curse would be recovered in short order. Lord Voldermort himself took a small company straight ahead towards the Wizengamot. His intent was easily guessed. Mr. Grim had gone down a passage to the right alone. It seemed like there wouldn't be much this way as it lead to the storerooms of the Department of Mysteries. In would seem that it should have been well-guarded, and against ordinary intruders it was, but not against an army coming through the front door. The wards of detection had been set off, but there was nobody to respond. They were all busy already.

Mr. Grim was a fool but not an utter fool. As soon as he was alone he cast Protego just in case a wizard around a blind corner got the first shot off at him. He was a certain match for any but a battle-hardened auror but one lucky shot would still be bad.

But around the corner was something he did not expect. A man, dressed not in robes, but in blue jeans and a polo shirt had made himself large in the passage way. In his right hand was what Mr. Grimm knew only vaguely to call a gonne and his left something small, and a phoenix was upon his shoulder and he was somehow afire but the fire did not consume him.

"Stupefy."

The man dodged it and with the same motion hurled the something in his left hand right at Mr. Grim. Mr. Grim dodged it. If he had known what it was he would have done something else. Taking more careful aim, he sent another stunbolt at the strange man. It too was dodged, and the man lifted his gonne with both hands.

Then his world was jolted. Mr. Grim was hurled towards the wall, his shield straining as it bounced him off it again and he was thrown forward and against the ground. His shield, not meant to be used like that, gave way, and he planted his face on the floor. He then drew forth all of his strength and all of his hatred, pointed his wand at his now much closer assailant, and nearly screamed "Avada Kedavra", but in the half second between the killing curse leaving his wand and reaching his fiery target his target wasn't there anymore but was on top of him instead.

Then there was a sound of thunder and Mr. Grim's story ended.

The outcome of the battle was pre-determined. The valiant efforts of the DMLE, Alastor Moody, and Michael Evans-Verres could not change that. The timeline in which the assault upon the ministry was turned was not the timeline in which Harry Potter was snatched from the grasp of Tom Riddle.

In the time it had taken to bring down the ward of Azkaban that prevented phoenixes from leaving, Mr. Evans-Verres had stopped two death eaters from entering the Department of Mysteries, and Alastor Moody had also been busy. Then messages were sent across the ministry to evacuate and the ways of escape were in the DMLE and the Department of Mysteries. Any who went to the DMLE escaped by the vanishing cabinet to Azkaban, and any who went to the Department of Mysteries escaped by phoenix to Azkaban. Yet it was not a clean escape for such a thing does not exist in the face of the enemy.

In the last emergency a young auror Albus Goldstein barred the door. The people escaping behind him could not run through the interlocks of the cabinet fast enough and so there was quite the crowd in the room of the DMLE with the cabinet to Azkaban. He saw coming down the hallway several Death Eaters with fiendfyre in front of them. He was already weary from fights in the hallways for he had met a death eater nearly his match. Both had exhausted their magics and it had come down to a knife fight in which he had barely prevailed and not without injury. He shut the door (thankfully it opened inward), drew forth his wand and cast prismatic wall. Already out of magic, he cast it with his life force and staggered to the floor. But the wall held. Fiendfyre burned through he door and slammed into it, and he screamed from the floor, but the wall still held. The thing of consuming fire appeared to claw at the wall and slide back and forth on it, for the will of its caster wavered in sheer astonishment. The last group of people escaping through the cabinet saw him still there on the floor when they shut the door to the cabinet from the inside. Even as they closed the door, the prismatic wall gave way to fiendfyre. It was only a matter of time, after all.

Lord Voldermort entered the Wizengamot with a fiendfyre phoenix appearing to sit upon his shoulder, bits of crimson dripping off it yet somehow not igniting his black robes. He found none there but his Death Eaters. His opponents had fought and lost in the halls. Many had escaped his grasp but he hardly cared at this point. He would rule Magical Britain and they would soon submit or die. He had the Wizengamot, the time turners from the Department of Mysteries, and the stone of permanency. Who could oppose him now?

On consideration he had to be more careful than that unless he wanted to rule over a world of ashes. The magical world would fall before him, but he in turn would fall before the muggle world, and he knew it. He knew what his Death Eaters never would, of the powers that were set against each other and their capacity to end all life on the surface of the earth.

But he didn't know that greater powers were set above him, far beyond his reach. He should have known. He hadn't heard the prophesy of the centaur but he had heard the prophesy of Trelawney.